What Dreams May Come

Happy New Year!!

It's hard to believe that 2018 is already gone, but here we are in 2019, which I hope will be a good one for you all.

I did very little in the way of writing or editing over the holiday season, but I did come up with several new ideas, so expect 2 full books and at least 2 short stories in the coming months, although I will need to put "Karaoke Night" to bed before I get started.

For the purposes of this piece, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the impact that dreams have on what I write. I have always had very vivid dreams, some of which stay with me for an interminably long time. I had one of those just before Christmas and am now trying to figure out how to create something from said dream.

It all began with me in a hotel in Las Vegas, where I was reading a story in a newspaper about a female serial killer named Pinky Ledoux. Next thing I know, I'm outside the hotel and face to face with an extraordinarily tall woman with pink, dread-locked hair and features that can best be described as alien in appearance. She tells me that she has something that I need to see, to which I reply that I believe her to be either the killer or a prostitute looking to lure me into some awful sting operation. She assures me that she is neither, at which point I decide that it might be a good idea to see what it is she has for me.

The scene shifts and I am in an abandoned industrial area that is home to a long row of storage lockers. They are all closed up, save for the one on the end, which is wide open and emitting a very bright light. I hear the woman calling to me, but as I get closer her voice begins to warp, much like you would hear on old reel to reel tapes gone bad. I know I should run, but I need to see what is in the room. It turns out to be one of those big toxic waster barrels. The woman motions to me and suggests that I get in, telling me that she will keep me on ice until she is ready to play with me.

It is then that I bolt, with the good news here being that I am running quickly, which is not common for these types of dreams. The bad news is that she is gaining on me and talking to me in that weirdly warped voice. It is then that I awake, sweating like a stuck pig and very much feeling as though that ice bucket of hers would be a welcome dip.

Now, if you ever see a character named Pinky Ledoux show up somewhere down the line, you will know where she came from.